The future of optometry: Dr. Ben Young and his passion for education

Ben Young, OD, FAAO Image credit: New England College of Optometry

New England College of Optometry (NECO) faculty agree that there is something special about Ben Young, OD, FAAO. An associate professor of optometry and attending optometrist at the NECO Center for Eye Care, Roslindale, Young has proven himself as a an educator that makes a difference in his students’ lives.

“Ben is a natural public speaker and has a quick wit -- this serves him well in lecture and students are engaged and interested during his lessons,” said Jennifer Reilly, OD, MSc, FAAO, an assistant professor of optometry at NECO. “An instructor like Ben encourages students to be engaged, inquisitive, and excited for their career ahead in optometry. He creates a space or learning environment where students feel comfortable to ask questions and to be themselves.”

Judith Darrow, OD, associate professor of clinical optometry at NECO, said that Young’s natural ability to listen and talk to anyone from any background and be able to make them feel understood is what makes him an excellent clinician. “Ben is unique in his ability to make learning fun for the students while holding them to high standards of patient care and clinical knowledge,” she said. “He is always thinking of novel approaches to learning, often making games designed to engage the students in a learning activity. He is able to relate to the students in a compassionate, professional and supportive manner.”

A passion for education

For Young, it wasn’t always obvious that he would enter the education track. Born in the southern US and growing up primarily in South Dakota, he soon developed an affinity for the sciences, particularly chemistry. Young attended the South Dakota State University for a year starting in 2009, then transferred to the University of Connecticut, where he graduated in 2013.

Young found a natural transition into medicine in his passion for working with people, but didn’t know that optometry was the right fit until he job shadowed a pharmacist, dentist, and optometrist. “It was very clear from the first day of shadowing that optometry was the profession for me,” Young said. “I think the main reason for that was because the person I was shadowing that day … she put so much time and thought into every single patient that she saw.”

Feeling drawn to explore the northeast, Young attended NECO, graduating in 2017. He then completed a year residency at the West Roxbury VA. When ready to apply for jobs, he had initially weighed the option of practicing at a private practice with an ophthalmology group. “Teaching was something that I never thought that I would do,” Young said. However, his experiences creating and running continuing education lectures while he was a resident peaked his interest in education, leading him to following a path of fate and opening an email from NECO about a vacant assistant professor position with the school.

Young with students that worked at NECO's Center for Eye Care, Roslindale in 2020Image credit: Ben Young, OD, FAAO

Now, during Young’s day-to-day, he values the variety that NECO provides his work. For 2 or 3 days, he sees patients at NECO, with the rest of the week split between administrative and advocacy work and teaching courses. Young said that over the last 7 years as a professor, his love for education has only grown.

Young with more of his students at the Roslindale clinic Image credit: Ben Young, OD, FAAO

Aurora Denial, OD, Dipl AAO OE, professor and chair of the Department of Clinical Education and Clinical Science at NECO, has worked with Young since he began teaching in the Department of Clinical Education and Science, working as his mentee and colleague. “Dr Young is a dedicated and conscientious faculty member who demonstrates an unwavering commitment to both his students and the learning process,” Denial said.

Young has worked as a clinical preceptor, instructor of record, Clinical Reasoning course facilitator, lab instructor, and lecturer for the Principles and Practice of Optometry course.

“As the leader of the PPO1 course, Dr Young has exhibited exceptional initiative by revising and reorganizing course materials, developing pre-lab resources, and creating innovative instructional videos with voiceovers and sound effects,” Denial said.

Young presenting a poster on his gamification methodology at the American Academy of Optometry annual meeting in 2022. Image credit: Ben Young, OD, FAAO

Both Denial and Reilly both noted that Young’s creativity when it comes to education was most evident in his “gamification” approach, particularly at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. For a first-year, first-semester class of over 130 students and limited in-person time, Young created an “rNFL” league, which sorted students into leagues and teamsto earn points for different tasks. Some of these tasks included developing assessment questions and answering questions as a team, among others. Reilly also reported that Young also worked with work study students to create explanatory videos that he has titled his “Clarify” series for students.

Denial also noted that Young recently introduced a new course at NECO titled Recreational Drug Use and the Eye. “His work in this domain has not only enriched the NECO curriculum but also played a significant role in the creation of a mandatory continuing education course for optometrists, focused on opioids and overdose prevention,” she said.

Young was one of the authors that wrote and published the fifth edition of Clinical Procedures for Ocular Examination. From left: Reilly, Hilary Gaiser, OD, MSc, Nancy Carlson, OD, FAAO, DipOE, and Young. Image credit: Ben Young, OD, FAAO

This innovation has paid off for Young, with his recognition as OD1 Professor of the Year Award in 2019 and 2021, and OD1 Preceptor of the Year Award in 2020. “My approach generally to education is to allow a student breathing room to say, ‘Okay, these are the parameters that we are working with. This is our goal. We are trying to achieve a very specific, measurable goal, and I want you to get there now,’” Young said.

“I think giving students the ability to fail in a safe space is a really important part of learning, and I think that it makes it more fun and engaging for a student to learn in that way,” he continued.

Young added that school of optometry faculty have an important job in making sure that students are prepared for new technology and to view new devices or innovations as tools to utilize, rather than replace the human aspect of optometry. “There's always new technology that's going to be emerging into the market, and instead of approaching it with a sense of doom, I think that we should all approach it and see it as a tool that we can use, and then help students use it, as opposed to being overrun by it,” Young said.

Advocacy

Outside of the classroom, Young is also passionate about providing spaces for optometry students in the LGBTQ+ community to establish a space where members could express themselves while remaining professional. He said in his work to establish Prism, NECO’s LGBTQ+ and ally organization, and later the national Pride ODs group, came from his own experiences in navigating how to come out while in school. “There was almost this part where I felt like I shouldn’t tell people, because I didn’t know if that was professional or if I should just not tell people,” Young said. “So in some ways, I kind of went back in the closet and just didn’t tell my professors.”

While Pride ODs has organized lecture series and symposiums to educate optometrists, Young said the next step for the group is to gather data regarding the number of LGBTQ+ faculty and students at schools and universities of optometry. He said he estimates that by surveying schools, the group will find that optometric schools are following the general national trend of more younger people identifying as LGBTQ+.Within the year, Pride ODs aims to publish the data in a peer-reviewed journal.

What’s next?

Ultimately, no matter where the future takes him, Young is looking forward to keeping the field of optometry patient focused. “If we keep it human focused, keep it focused on the connections that we make between strangers, truly at the end of the day, I think the profession will always be strong,” he said.